Swing planes are like super models. There are some that are flat like Twiggy or Kate Moss and some that are curvier like your favorite Victoria Secret super model. Everyone has their own preference as to which is prettier but in the current world of golf instruction the bias is overwhelmingly toward the Kate Moss flat look.

But does anyone know what the most popular swing plane is for the players on tour? And I mean do they employ flatter or steeper backswings? I thought it would be a good project to find out where everyone is. So take your filters off and let’s just start by objectively seeing what the pros look like at the top of the backswing.

Categorization Methodology

Since some players are tall and some are short, the angle of the left arm at the top cannot be used as a guide. Some players have more tilt to their spines toward the ball (left lateral bend) while some stand up a little (right lateral bend). The only way to judge the plane would be to use the left arm in relation to the shoulder line and how deep (or not deep) the hands get.  So we’ll start with the flattest backswings and progress to the steepest backswings last.

Left arm matching the shoulder line 15 players with 3 major championship winners

By this definition, Matt Kuchar would have the flattest swing on tour. His left arm is slightly lower than his shoulder line. Since he’s using the Jim Hardy one plane swing, this is what we’d expect to see.

Matt Kuchar

Another Hardy student, Chris Tidland.

Tom Pernice Jr.

Hardy senior tour player.

Rickie Fowler

Fowler style.

Jeff Maggert 

Jose Maria Olazabal

Miguel Angel Jimenez 

Anthony Kim

AK has Leadbetter influence via Adam Schriber.

Lee Westwood

Matteo Manaserro

Jason Dufner

Gay Brewer

Maude-Aimee LeBlanc 

Kevin Na

Morgan Pressel

Problem with flat backswings

The one danger of the flat backswing is that the more the butt end of the shaft gets over your right elbow, the greater the chance that you will externally rotate the right shoulder maximally. This will trigger a stretch shorten cycle to fire the right shoulder internally which is the primary cause of the over the top swings in amateurs. See Morgan’s early right shoulder IR?

Matt Kuchar does the same move but then recovers with late right shoulder ER and lateral bend/lordosis. Thus at impact, he looks like any other drive/holder. 

 

Morgan isn’t so athletically gifted to be able to recover from such a position and perhaps a different solution to the problem is employed. Instead of being able to fire right shoulder ER to stop from coming over the top, she instead restricts her shoulder turn and arrives at impact with closed shoulders (she does lateral bend while losing lordosis). This will then cause a flip to occur.

Left Arm slightly above the right shoulder: 24 players with 4 major championship winners

Ben Hogan

Hogan’s left arm is slightly above his right shoulder while his left forearm blocks full view of his right shoulder joint. Camera height matters because if shot from higher than the player, the left forearm will cover the right shoulder more easily. But at least you can see the left arm does not match the shoulder line or they would be placed in the previous category. These swings would be considered flat.

Chad Campbell

Charley Hoffman

Nicolas Colsaerts

Graeme McDowell

Geoff Ogilvy

Mark Wilson

Robert Castro

Scott Stallings

Kenny Perry

Gary Woodland

JJ Henry

Brendon De Jonge

Matt Goggin

Stuart Appleby

Notice the difference between Stuart’s right arm position and Matt Goggin’s despite similar looking left arm positions. The more vertical the right forearm, the greater the external rotation of the right shoulder (tucked position). Matt has a more angled forward right forearm showing a little more internal rotation of the right shoulder.

This was certainly not the same position when Stuart was playing his best golf early in his career. Notice also that as Stuart’s left arm gets flatter, his left wrist is more cupped and clubface “squarer” (or shall we say more open than in his younger days).

Camilo Villegas

Jarrod Lyle

Pat Perez

Justin Rose

Hunter Mahan

Zach Johnson

Charlie Wi

Dean Wilson

Greg Chalmers

Heath Slocum

Caution

There are some very aesthetically pleasing swings in this category however there is the same danger as with the previous category of flat swings. 

It would be safer to let the right elbow rise a bit with the flat backswing to allow the right shoulder to move toward IR at the end of the backswing which then can trigger ER on the downswing. Keeping the right elbow tucked and getting laid off can cause the “hit from the top” syndrome or firing IR at the start of the downswing.

Left arm above the shoulder line: 52 players with 14 major championship winners

If their right shoulder joint can clearly be seen, they will be placed in this category. These backswings are neither flat nor steep so I guess they would be considered the “on plane” group.

Tiger 2011

Tiger 2008

Adam Scott

Ernie Els

Mark O’Meara

Henrik Stenson

Webb Simpson

Phil Mickelson (LH)

Rory McIlroy

YE Yang

Martin Kaymer

Trevor Immelman

Louis Oosthuizen

Billy Casper

Kevin Streelman

Luke Donald

Ryo Ishikawa

Sang Moon Bae

Ryan Palmer

Alvaro Quiros

Rafael Cabrera-Bello

Ken Duke

Boo Weekley

Justin Leonard

Scott Verplank 

Suzann Pettersen

Jeff Gove

Johnson Wagner

Steve Stricker

James Driscoll

 Tim Clark 

Brian Gay 

Sergio Garcia 

Lexi Thompson

Aaron Baddeley

Sean O’Hair

Yani Tseng

Graham DeLaet 

Thomas Bjorn

Chad Collins

Tom Gillis

Shingo Katayama

Simon Dyson

Brandt Snedeker

Francesco Molinari

Eduardo Molinari

Michael Sim

Steve Flesch (LH)

Richard S. Johnson

Tim Petrovic

Arjun Atwal

Ryuji Imada

David Hearn

  

Left arm way above the shoulder line (steep): 89 players with 26 major championship winners

This category of steep backswings will be split into two groups. The distinction is between those that have the hands and butt end of the club more posterior (deep or behind the right shoulder) or more anterior (in front or over right shoulder).

Steep/Posterior: 42 players with9 major championship winners

  


Davis Love III

Charl Schwartzel

Padraig Harrington

Vijay Singh

David Toms

Bernhard Langer

Greg Norman

Byron Nelson

Tony Lema

Jason Day 

Bill Haas

Nick Watney 

Karrie Webb

Veronica Felibert

Jessica Korda

  IK Kim 

Paul Casey 

Ross Fisher

|
George McNeil

Ian Poulter

Martin Laird

Robert Garrigus

Jerry Kelly 

Danny Lee

John Huh

Robert Karlsson

Kent Jones

 Shane Bertsch 

  Natalie Gulbis 

Joe Durant

Chez Reavie

Dustin Johnson

Bo Van Pelt

Jason Kokrak

  Alex Cejka 

Steep/Anterior: 47 players with 17 major championship winners

Steep/Anterior means the butt end of the club gets over the right shoulder at the top of the backswing.

Jack Nicklaus 

Inbee Park 

Annika Sorenstam 

Tiger Woods 2000

Bubba Watson

Keegan Bradley

Lucas Glover

Jim Furyk

John Daly

Angel Cabrera

Tom Watson

David Duval

 
Nick Price

Nick Faldo

Fred Couples

Steve Elkington

Todd Hamilton

 
Colin Montgomerie

 
Billy Horschel

Chris DiMarco 

JB Holmes

Kyle Stanley

Kris Blanks

Jeev Milkha Singh

 
DJ Trahan

Jesper Parnevik

Carl Petterssen

Tommy Gainey

KJ Choi

Josh Teater

Rory Sabbatini

Wen Chong Liang

Rocco Mediate

Kevin Stadler

 
William McGirt 

Harrison Frazar

Patrick Cantlay

Kevin Chappell

Hideki Matsuyama

Steve Marino

John Senden

Paul Goydos

Martin Flores

Ricky Barnes

 
Nathan Green

Some thoughts and observations

Prettiest Backswing on Tour

My vote goes to Henrik Stenson for the prettiest backswing. We tend to have the Golf Digest sequence still photos in our minds when viewing swings like this. The guideline of being “on plane” at the top of the backswing where the shaft gets pointed parallel to the target and the club horizontal is just nonsense. Sure it looks pretty but how many of the tour guys are actually looking like that? Not more than a handful.

Short or Long Backswings

For driver swings only, there was an equal amount of long backswings (going past horizontal) vs. short backswings (stopping short of horizontal) with each group having 41% of the total swings. Only 18% of the swings stopped at horizontal.

Laid Off or Cross the Line

There are more “laid off” swings by a slight margin (38%). Cross the line swings had 34% of the swings while the on plane swings where the club points parallel to the target line had 27% of the swings.

If you apply the standard of Stenson’s top of the backswing position to everyone else, they all look ugly in comparison. If judging by beauty, the ugliest swings are in the steep category and especially when the hands are more anterior.

Driving Distance

There are no long hitters in the left arm matching the shoulder line category. Though Colsaerts and Woodland are in the flat category, the rest of the long hitters on tour have either on plane or steep backswings.

Accuracy

Accuracy leaders are in the steeper categories.

Just Win Baby!

But if look at effectiveness, which group has more major championship winners? The steep category (with both subsets of hands posterior or anterior) has 26 major championship winners. Yet if you look at the current instruction fad, everyone is teaching flat backswings. Whether it is some Golf Machine iteration, stack and tilt, Jim Hardy One Plane Swing or even David Leadbetter who seems to have gone away from what made his players great, you would think that the flat backswing is the only way to go.  

Next month, I'll be looking a little deeper into the downswing planes of the tour players. Should be interesting.

Notes

Lance Kim will be distributing my Impact Snap device in South Korea. He can be contacted at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Thanks to Justin Tang from the Asian Golf Institute, I have been approved to offer PGA continuing education credit classes on three different topics; Spine movements, Lower body mechanics and the Release movements. The target date is to start on September 1st.